


Statement of Ron Stampler

by Aryashi



Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Standard Willy fare, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25385821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aryashi/pseuds/Aryashi
Summary: Regarding the death of his father in a fishing accident on Lake Tahoe. Original statement given August 16th, 2004. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.Statement begins.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 64





	Statement of Ron Stampler

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kineticallyanywhere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kineticallyanywhere/gifts).



> Because sometimes you have an idea and you just have to do it.
> 
> this is more of a Magnus fic in tone, but it should work coming from either direction! Content warning in the end notes

Statement of Ron Stampler, regarding the death of his father in a fishing accident on Lake Tahoe. Original statement given August 16th, 2004. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

People... assume. That's what people do a lot actually. Assume things about me, about themselves, about what a businessman is supposed to do. That's not so bad, most of the time. I mean, I _have_ to assume things. If I ask too many questions Mr. Carl Smith, my boss, gets mad at me. Though, I guess he’s going to be mad at me no matter what, if I’m taking time away from work on a real important business trip to visit your Foundation. But this is important too. And it’s the only time I’m going to be on the east coast anyway, so. Has to be now. I always promised myself I would tell someone, someday, about what happened. What _really_ happened.

I guess I did some assuming too, about how this would work. Had it all rehearsed in my head. In my head, I would say my story out loud to a professional man or woman. Once I was finished, they would nod, and then they would tell me exactly what to do. Having to write it down instead-- I didn’t rehearse for that. This isn’t going how I thought it would at all. But, it's not such a bad thing to be wrong about. Sometimes you’re wrong about something that’s a lot more important than how you tell a story. Sometimes... sometimes you assume things are safe. That just because you're strong, or smart, you're above things. Above the whole world. Above a lake.

People assume things about lakes. I mean, I’m a very smart person, who knows things! But even I didn’t think about lakes, before. They aren’t seen as scary, you know? Not like the ocean. People understand being afraid of the ocean, especially in California. The waves are tall, and there’s sharks, and undertows, and drunk kids going too fast on jet skis. Oceans have all the weird glowing fish with sharp teeth and milky white eyes. Lakes are so small by comparison, what’s to be afraid of?

Heh.

I, uh, didn’t get along with my father much. Willy Stampler, if you need his full name too. He was a traveling salesman, selling fishing lures all over the Pacific coast. He did a lot of good business near the national forests every summer. One of those summers, he met my mom, and then I happened. They got married, for a while, but she left before I could remember her. I’m sorry, I don’t know her full name. If you find out, could you tell me? I’ve wanted to know what happened to her for a while.

He still had to travel for work, but couldn’t go as far. Couldn’t stay as long, couldn’t sell as many lures, couldn’t make as much money. Things were always tight, and he ran the house like that. Follow his rules exactly, to the letter, the first time. As far as I was concerned, he ruled the universe. Whatever he said was the law, and I had to obey or get punished to the fullest extent. And I got punished. A lot. 

But he did try. He tried to connect with me. Willy sold lures because he loved fishing, and he was a traveling salesman because that let him fish in the most places. A couple times, he took me along with him while he traveled, to his favorite lakes, to try and fish with him. I wasn’t good at it. The first time he took me fishing was the worst. It was on Lake Isabella, in 1985. In May, I’m pretty sure. I was about eight and I couldn’t sit still, which rocked the boat and scared off the fish. Then when my father finally got lucky and snagged one, I threw up watching him gut it. On the fish. He pretty much gave up on me after that.

There were a couple fishing trips after that, but they were usually when he couldn’t find someone to watch me and had to drag me along or leave me alone. None went as bad as the first did, but I never caught a single fish no matter what I tired. That really burned my dad up, and he was sure to let me know it.

By the time I was sixteen, the fishing trips were basically over. My father expected me to look after myself and the apartment while he was gone, be the man of the house, and that’s what I did. Or I tried. I always messed up something, and he always noticed as soon as he got home, and he always let me have it.

I think Willy thought of Tahoe as my last shot. My last shot of becoming a real man, with real adult man skills, who could actually make it in the world. Lake Tahoe was always huge business for him, even in 1993. Traveling salesmen just weren’t making the money they used to, but the California National Parks during tourist season always bought lures, and they always bought a ton of them. Willy could spend weeks up there in motels and still make enough money to turn a profit. This time, he even managed to swing staying at a friend’s place the whole season. Jackson Galewsk had a house in Carson City, a half hour drive away from the park, way closer than the seven it took to drive there from San Dimas. A nice house too, plenty of room for all of us. I think him and my father used to go drinking together, and kept in touch through the seasonal fishing lure market. I stayed out of their way. Watched TV. I could tell Willy was in a good mood because he let me.

The day my dad died started early. Really early. Willy woke me up when the stars were still out and told me we were going fishing together. You’re supposed to go fishing at dawn, I knew that, but he didn’t tell me we were going fishing until he was shaking me awake. But I went, because if Willy Stampler decided it was time to go fishing, it was time to go fishing. Arguing wouldn’t do anything but make him mad.

I fell asleep in the car, of course. My father shook me awake again, and before I’d even really processed what was happening, we were out in the middle of the lake on a boat. A motor boat, but Willy was taking us slow. He didn’t want to scare off all the fish with loud sounds.

The first strange thing was that we were alone. Lake Tahoe is big, sure, miles wide, but it's also one of the busiest lakes in the country. Every other time I’d been there, even early in the morning, there were always at least a couple other fishing boats out on the water. But that morning it was just us. Willy was thrilled. I think he always liked spending time by himself the most.

“Perfect time to test this baby,” he said. He showed me his newest lure, the special one he was going to be selling the rest of the season. “Get a couple big fish with these, and I can prove they’re worth double the price.”

I nodded. He had two lures, one for me and one for him.

We got our rods out, and then we cast. Willy reamed me out for doing it wrong, like usual, and then we sat and we waited for a bite. Most of fishing is sitting around and waiting for fish to get interested in your bait. Sometimes you cast out again, if you aren’t getting any bites, but I never got a feel for that. Willy always said I did it at the wrong times. I was pulling my lure in to try another spot when he cast his out again.

I remember that cast perfectly. I can still see it right now. Exactly the way the lure flew, the line following, just barely visible. The look on his face in the weird not quite dawn light. There was a mosquito buzzing next to my right ear, water in my shoes, and my rod in my left hand. A snapshot in my brain.

The next moment, the lure landed in the water with a little _plop._ The moment after that, my father’s line went taught. I think he tried to brace, to pull against it, because if he hadn’t he might have just lost the rod. But Willy Stampler was strong and stubborn; he wasn’t going to be beaten by some dumb fish.

The very next moment he was pulled out of the boat and into the water of Lake Tahoe.

There was a big splash, but… not as big as there should have been. The water didn’t stay foamy, and the boat didn’t rock like it should have. I remember thinking that was weird, and waiting for my dad to surface, saying a string of words I’d get in trouble for _thinking_ too loud around him.

He didn’t. Not after a minute. Not after two. Not after five.

The whole time I just… sat there. Waiting for him to come back. Because he had to come back. He was the only thing in the world that was always the same. The only constant. Names and faces all blurred together, a mass that I couldn’t pick anything out of, except for him. My father was always supposed to be there. He was supposed to be in that boat. And he wasn’t.

I don’t know how long it took me to look over the side. Ten minutes? Twenty? Too long. Long enough I should have been looking for a body instead of him. We never wore life jackets. Willy thought they were for pansies who couldn’t swim, and if you couldn’t swim, you didn’t have any right to bellyache about drowning.

When I looked into the water… I saw something.

See, so far, this is the story I tell everyone. The story I tell myself, even. The story that makes sense. Willy Stampler was pulled under the water, he drowned, and no one ever found his body because he sank to the bottom of the lake.

But no one could ever explain how we were alone out there. How no one but me saw what happened. The lake shouldn't have been empty, and nothing living there should have been strong enough to pull my dad under like that. Those things don’t make any sense either, so. Maybe this next part makes sense to you.

When I looked into the lake, I saw it. Properly.

Did you know Lake Tahoe is about a thousand feet deep? I didn’t. I didn’t think about how deep the lake was at all. If I _had_ thought about it, I think I would have thought the lake was twenty, thirty feet deep. Most scuba divers don’t go deeper than a _hundred_ and thirty. After five hundred feet, even with clear water, no daylight could reach you. It's miles long and miles wide.

And every square inch of it was alive.

Not with fish. Not with the normal lake stuff. Not in the hippy nature way. I mean that the entire lake was… literally alive. You know the phrase ‘there’s always a bigger fish’? I hope that isn’t true. I stare up at the ceiling some nights hoping as hard as I can that isn’t true. I hope I saw it. I hope I saw the biggest fish.

Because when I talk about it like this, you’re painting a picture in your head. You’re picturing the lake as a giant fish with a head on one end and a tail on the other. Something sitting in the lake, too big to move. That’s not what it was. It was… it was so huge, so massive, twisted in on itself. Its body was as thick around as a train, but I have no idea how long it was, because all I could see for miles was this massive body curling around itself, filling the lake from top to bottom with coils of muscle and fins and razor sharp scales.

I know the scales were sharp. The coils moved fast, but there were streams of red left. Bits of meat. My father was dead in the first seconds he was pulled under. Like he was nothing. The thing didn't eat him. That's not what happened. My father wasn't worth eating. If the bits of him I saw even went inside, it would be like saying I ate dust just because some particles went in my mouth and down my throat. Nothing was eaten. My father was inhaled.

I was alone, in a boat, in the middle of an impossible lake, with no one. This creature, it was so much bigger than me, and so much bigger than my father. He was nothing to it, and I was even less than nothing. A speck floating in a speck, only a thin skin of water between me and death. 

Someone found me in that boat. Catatonic, I think. Curled up in the bottom, waiting for the lake to crush me too. I think they asked me questions, tried to figure out what was wrong, but… how could I answer? We were both so small. We could both be gone in a moment. Nothing either of us did mattered. That makes it sound numb, but I wasn’t numb. I was terrified. Shaking, like I was going to throw up. If my dad wasn’t there, if Willy Stampler could be shredded and gone at any moment, what chance did I have? What chance did anyone have?

I don’t know how, but I got back to Jackson’s place. He’s the one who took care of me during the first part. The worst part. He kept me out of the foster system too. I’m real thankful for that, even if it meant I was on my own for a while. Dad’s life insurance went a long way, long enough for me to get a real job and get myself a place to stay. These days, I try to keep busy. Do important business. Look after myself.

But I don’t go near lakes. And so long as I live, I’ll never go to the ocean. I’m afraid I’ll get lost in that feeling again. The feeling that me and everyone around me is nothing at all.

I’m not sure I liked telling this story. Maybe this was a bad idea.

Statement Ends.

The strangest thing about this statement is just how little it actually matters to me. Callous, but I have to admit to myself that it’s true. The only reason I’m even at the Usher Foundation is because I informed them of my intent to visit before the... most recent kidnapping experience. Marking a sudden visit with an even more sudden cancellation seemed unwise. Overly suspicious.

Elias clearly didn’t think it was necessary; he only sent me one statement. I would have thought, after Julia, Trevor, and Gerry-- but maybe those expend energy instead? Live statements have always left me uniquely exhausted. All I know is that the sickness I was feeling before struck me again, making my bus trip to Washington DC absolutely miserable. Considered toughing it out, waiting until I was back at the Institute, but. Well, I was going here _anyway,_ and it wasn’t like I expected to find anything related to Gertrude or the Unknowing. As near as anyone currently working here can tell, the only interaction she had with the Foundation was to establish them as a forwarding address.

And so now I am here. Reading a statement that I picked out of the shelves at random, wasting precious time I do not have. I suppose it is clarifying? To have an account of someone so far away fit into one of the fourteen so neatly. Even setting aside the, uh, _vast_ figure of the monster in the lake, the fear of being less than nothing, all the power of the most terrifying people in your life gone in an uncaring instant…

There’s some cursory follow up with the file, completed by the Usher Foundation in 2014. Willy Stampler was declared dead in August of 1993, by court order. I don’t have much familiarity with American legal procedures, but declaring a man dead after only a few months missing, with no evidence of a corpse-- it has the sensation of Section 31, or whatever version of it American police have. Or perhaps simple bribery. His son wouldn’t have been able to receive life insurance money if he wasn’t officially dead. Lake Tahoe has a known phenomena of cold water shock, claiming a few people each year. That was ultimately the official cause of Willy Stampler’s demise.

Mr. Stampler was contacted for follow up, and declined to comment, aside from asking if they ever did do any research on his mother. They did not.

But Ron Stampler is alive. Alive in San Dimas, with a new wife and step son. The fear hasn’t left him, but it is manageable. Marked, scarred, but not lost. A rare ending, in this world.

… None of that information is in the file. I-- I don’t--...

I need to get back to London.

End recording.

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warning  
> \- Many instances of casually referenced emotional abuse (screw willy stampler with a cactus)  
> \- Sudden violent off screen death  
> \- Large bodies of water  
> Thanks for reading!!


End file.
